Westfield Middle School North hosted CPR training held by the Kevs Foundation. Proper training in an emergency can help increase a victim’s chances of survival. (Photo by Robby Veronesi)
WESTFIELD – Hypertrophic Cardio Myopathy (HCM) is synonymous with cases of “sudden cardiac arrest”, and impacts about 5,000 people between the ages of 15-34, according to the Center for Disease Control. Symptoms range from shortness of breath, headaches, fatigue and blacking out.
As a part of National CPR Awareness Week, students from 12 schools across Westfield and other parts of western Massachusetts participated in an educational day of awareness yesterday, with a goal of demonstrating proper cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, techniques.
Westfield High School students practice with the assistance of AMR paramedics. (Photo by Robby Veronesi)
“Our mission is to raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest,” said Susan Canning, director of Kevs Foundation and mother of Kevin Major, a Westfield teen who died on July 11, 2011 from HCM after suffering cardiac arrest. Autopsies showed that Major, 19, had an abnormally enlarged ventricle, which had gone unnoticed.
“We know through awareness and doing different programs, we can see predictors that we would not have seen earlier,” she said. “If we have bystanders that know how to do CPR, that know the chain of command, survival rate is tenfold. That is the key.”
CPR compressions early and often until medical personnel arrive on the scene correlates with a higher survival rate.
Westfield High School faculty practice proper CPR techniques as part of the Kevs Foundation day to spread awareness of sudden cardiac arrest. Westfield High School, Westfield Middle School North and St. Mary’s High School all participated. (Photo by Robby Veronesi)
Students at St. Mary’s, Westfield High School and Westfield Middle School North learned proper CPR techniques from certified paramedics of American Medical Response and KEVS Foundation staff in order to be prepared for a scenario like Major’s.
“We have a potential this morning of 3,000 kids heightening their awareness of CPR that may not have had an idea when they woke up this morning,” said Canning. “Even if half of them go home and tell their parents and show them what they have learned, that’s another 1,500 citizens in the community that have heightened awareness of CPR.”
“That in it of itself is a gift.,” she said.
For more information or to donate, please visit the Foundation’s website, www.kevsfoundation.com.
